“big, tall, black, blonde chick”

Car Wash (1976) dir. Michael Schultz

I'd believe it if you told me this movie was made last year. Markedly seventies, but nothing about it feels at all dated. Every character is a minor one, but every performance is a home run.

The only thing better than having George Carlin star in a film is having George Carlin show up briefly and intermittently delivering the same line for the entirety of his role: "Did you happen to see a big, tall, black blonde chick?" If he was in it anymore than that it probably would've felt like a mockery. I'm sooooo glad he's here but this isn't his story yadi yadi yada. He is lookin' mighty cute in that striped tee though, gut hangin' over the rail and all. 

This reminded me of The Hudsucker Proxy. Kids who have a knack for things getting time in the spotlight. 

The movie is scored wall to wall but somewhere around the half an hour mark, unannounced and unanticipated it decides that it's actually a musical for a short number. Although sudden, it isn't a brassy shift. It weaves effortlessly, just like how Calvin moves on a skateboard!! And just like how we move from character to character in brief vignettes that braid into the next.

My favorite scene in the film, and I wish I could find a decent clip of it, is when our neighborhood hooker tries to call a customer she's fallen in love with named "Joe." The camera baits us as it follows TC (The Fly) through the windows of the wash, and switches for what is actually a scene for Marleen. TC leaves and we're looking at her through the glass of the phone booth, then perfectly blending diegesis and score, Marleen starts singing "I'm Going Down" along with Rose Royce. Her phone call doesn't go as planned, leaves the booth, and framed by the doorway, tosses the ripped up phony phone number to the side, right on beat. It's painful but a working girl is trained for disappointment. We move on.

Car Wash contains an aggregate mix of lively, silly, and deeply felt stories of love and law, religion and race and never lingers too long on one or another. Then the day is over and it all starts again, bookended with the same musical montage we started with. A purgatorial loop for those workin' another day for another dollar.


**Seen in Theatre 1 @NWFF, After Hours